


you're alive (so alive)

by catching_paper_moons



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28043001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catching_paper_moons/pseuds/catching_paper_moons
Summary: Julie enters the house attic three years after her mom’s been gone.or, an exploration of grief through four very important people in Julie Molina's life.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 42
Kudos: 154





	you're alive (so alive)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first work for this fandom lol. hi!
> 
> so... you know how taylor swift released an album like two days ago, and there's a song on there called marjorie? so i listened to it and i thought about the boys in the chorus when she's like "what died didn't stay dead." and i lost it, and then and then and then here we are.
> 
> title from marjorie by taylor swift :)
> 
> this fic deals a lot with death and grief and mourning, and as such was at times hard for me to write, and may be hard to read. i hope you take care of yourselves, and drink some water, and have a wonderful holiday season, even in this hard times, and i hope you enjoy this fic!

Julie enters the house attic three years after her mom’s been gone.

Tía Victoria had moved almost all of Rose’s things up there in a fit of productivity a few weeks after the funeral, and she’d left the small trunk of various trinkets in Julie’s room. “For whenever you want to look,” Tía had said, and Julie had mustered a small smile before pushing it into a corner. She’d thought maybe, if she’d opened it, it would open all the grief locked in her chest, and she’d already unleashed it on her dad, her brother, her tía, far too many times.

It was only once she had the boys that she felt better about opening it. Less like opening it was going to cause a meltdown and more like it would prompt her to reminisce on the good times, on everything that made her mom her. She’d worn the vest, she ran her hands over various ticket stubs and shirts, and in a weird way, she felt like her mom was there with her.

It took her two more years to even think about going into the attic, though.

There’s something that draws her in, calling her up the stairs like a siren song. She follows the pull all the way in, and she looks around, brows furrowed. It’s... clean. The boxes are stacked, untouched and labelled with her tia’s loopy handwriting.  _ Rose’s shirts (for Goodwill?)  _ one box reads. Julie blinks, swallowing harshly. The next box says  _ Rose’s notes _ , and Julie frowns, pulling it toward her. It’s heavier than she’d thought, for the small size, and she lets out an  _ oof _ before falling to the ground, with the box. “Ow,” she mutters, rubbing at her back.

“Julie?” Carlos calls out. “Is that you, or is it a ghost?”

She can almost see he exaggerated wink, and she rolls her eyes, smiling a little. “It’s me, and I’m fine, thanks for asking!” she calls back. She looks at the box, the flaps tucked in under each other in an attempt to keep it closed. She tugs it open. “Holy shit.”

It’s... a bunch of notebooks. Her breath hitches, and she shuts it, shakes her head, and climbs back down the ladder stairs before she can start crying. She folds them up as best she can, on her tip-toes on the step stool trying to close the door when there’s a  _ whoosh _ of air.

“Hi, Julie!” Luke says, and then he frowns at her as she’s midway through her struggle. “Do you need help?”

“No,” she grunts, jumping a little to push it into the latch. She misses the stool, though, and tumbles into him. He catches her easily, only stumbling a little, before righting them both. She sighs, sagging into him. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He tilts his head, eyes wide and kind. “What were you doing up there?”

“Oh, just looking around,” she says, brushing him off. He frowns. “Come on. I’m feeling kind of inspired.” She grabs his hand and he’s solid,  _ so  _ solid, and he perks up, following her to the garage. 

They sit and write for hours, laughing and creating, and when Reggie shows up halfway through, he helps them. It’s the most fulfilled and happy and free she’s felt since, well. 

Since her mom.

—

Everyone knows Julie Molina didn’t sing for an entire year after her mom died.

It was the talk of the school, and then it died down, and it didn’t seem very becoming to talk about the girl with the dead mom. And then, two years ago, she sang again, with her “hologram” band, and everyone said, “wow, Julie Molina’s got her voice back!” And it was true.

Mostly.

She was happy performing, really. Touching a piano didn’t feel as gut-wrenching as it had before. Writing with Luke was exhilarating. Writing with Reggie and Alex was even more fun. It didn’t feel like a burden.

But she didn’t exactly live and breathe music, either. Not the way she used to.

When she was younger, she would walk around and hum as she poured herself a glass of orange juice, or she’d put an album on while baking cookies with her mom. She sang in the shower, any song that came to mind, and just belted at the top of her lungs. And when her mom was gone, well, the singing stopped. The house used to be filled with music until, suddenly, it wasn’t. And Julie couldn’t bring herself to fill the house with music again. 

It didn’t feel right to be baking cookies and singing when her mom wasn’t there to walk in and snatch one right off the tray. It didn’t feel right to sing in the shower, or hum as she chewed or put on an impromptu musical number in her bedroom. It’s not like she never did those things, but she was conscious of it. She would do it in Flynn’s bedroom during a sleepover, dance around and sing, serenading Flynn with a stupid song they made up, or their favorite oldies. Luke would catch her humming and he’d smile, and say it was nice when she sang to herself, and she’d make sure not to do it. 

She has music back, sure; she’s writing again, and she feels it flowing through her, her heart pumping out blood  _ and _ creativity while she sits in front of a keyboard, and it feels good. Therapeutic, in a way. 

Sometimes, though, it’s like a heavy burden, to sit at her mom’s grand piano and play a song that she’s working on with the boys while knowing it was her mom’s piano. Like today, for example, it feels impossible to play a single note. Her fingers ghost over the keys lightly, not pressing enough to make a noise, and she sighs. Her heart feels too big for her chest, and tears well up in her eyes. There’s a breeze at the back of her neck, and she exhales.

“Guys?” she calls out, but when she turns around, no one’s there. She frowns, and turns back to the keyboard, looking at her haphazard papers strewn around with scratched out scribbles and question marks, and nothing comes to her. When she looks at her hands, they’re shaking, and she throws the music off the piano and onto the ground. It feels, right now, like yesterday she’d missed school because her abuelita was driving them to the hospital, and she was telling Julie it was going to be okay.

Her chest cracks open, and she sits hard, on the cold ground of the garage, and she looks at the piano and she  _ wants  _ to be that carefree 14 year old who didn’t know about her mom being sick and had gotten into a prestigious music program and was writing music like she  _ was  _ music. A sob escapes her, and there’s a cool touch on her face, but her tears are blurring her vision.

“I can’t see you,” she cries, voice thick around the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry.” There’s no response, and she cries harder, because maybe she really is just feeling things now, and maybe the guys aren’t even solid today. There’s a chill through her body, and then what feels like a hug, and maybe she is hearing things but she swears a small little melody is played on the piano. She furiously wipes at her eyes, but no one’s in there except,  _ oh _ , there’s Reggie, and he looks at her, face concerned, and she shakes her head.

“Julie,” he murmurs, sitting next to her. He slips her hand into hers, and it’s cold but comforting. Maybe it  _ was  _ Reggie in here, and he was just grabbing his flannel, which he’s slipping around her shoulders, now. “Wanna talk about it?”

She shakes her head. “Sometimes... music is painful,” she says, in lieu of anything else. Reggie blinks, and his face softens. “Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” he says, no hesitation. She blinks. “Sometimes, when you love something so much, it has the most power to hurt you.” The dam breaks, and she’s crying again, really crying, into Reggie’s shoulder, and he’s holding her so tight, and he’s warm where he’s usually cold, and he’s saying nothing but that’s good because if he was saying  _ anything  _ Julie would be crying harder. And she feels that breeze at the back of her neck again, and she pulls out of his arms and whips around.

“Mom?” she says, voice small, and Reggie grabs her hand, squeezing it. Her sigh is shaky, and Reggie makes a wounded noise, and when she looks back at him, his face is sad. She loves him. “I swear, I...”

“It’s okay,” Reggie says, and she knows she must look like a mess, with her hair askew and tear tracks on her cheeks, but Reggie just wipes them away, looking at her. “You swear you felt her.”

Julie deflates, sagging into his side again. “Yeah.” She says nothing more, but Reggie does, just talks about what he’d been up to, how many dogs he’d seen. He doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t tell, and she’s grateful.

—

Something about December intensifies her grief about her mother. Maybe it’s the holidays, or maybe the miracle of snow that she always thought her mom brought, because it  _ never  _ snows in LA, but it’s the fourth December since she’s lost her mom, and she’s unmoored, but handling it, she thinks.

Luke is perched on her bed as she unpacks from their last little tour up the coast, scribbling furiously away in his notebook like he’s been possessed. “Julie,” he says, and she hums. “What do you think of this?” He hums something, and then makes a face; it makes her laugh, and when he looks up at her, he’s got a small smile on his face. “Maybe not, huh?”

“Maybe not,” Julie agrees, and then Alex pops in, jumping on Julie’s bed. “Hi, Alex.”

“Hi, Julie.” His cheeks are flushed and he’s got a coy smile on his face when he leans over at Luke’s notebook. “Dude, are you ever  _ not  _ writing? I swear to God.”

“I think it’s a curse,” Luke says solemnly, and Julie and Alex burst into laughter at the same time, and Reggie poofs in and asks if Julie wants help unpacking, and her heart could burst with love for these boys, her phantoms, and suddenly she has to turn away.

Because they’re laughing and they seem so alive, to her,  _ so  _ alive and there and she’s able to touch them and comfort them and laugh with them and play music with them and one day she won’t. One day they’ll be gone, because they’re dead, they died in 1995, nine years before she was born, and she wasn’t really meant to know them, maybe, but she does and suddenly an existence without them seems impossible.

She hasn’t even really mourned the fact that they died in the first place.

Her breath hitches, and the mood in the room changes instantaneously. “Julie?” Alex asks, voice soft, and she shakes her head, willing the tears to stay in her eyes. “Hey, it’s okay, whatever it is.”

“It’s just,” she chokes out. “December. Christmas. You know?” It’s not even really a lie, because if she thinks any more she’ll be thinking about how she’s lost four of the most important people in her life, and three of them are still standing right in front of her.

Reggie pulls her close, kissing her forehead. He’s there, she reminds herself. She can feel his flannel, feel the smoothness of his skin. He’s right there. “It’s hard.”

Luke holds his hand out, and she goes, easily, falling into his lap like they’ve done this before. (They have.) He smooths back her hair, and she lets him move her closer to him, and he hugs her. She relaxes into his hold, taking a ragged breath. “It’s okay, Jules,” he says, and she reaches blindly for Alex, who takes her hand and squeezes it. “I’m right here, we got you.”

She wants to scream that that’s the problem, that they’re right  _ here  _ and they  _ won’t be  _ one day and she was prepared that day at the Orpheum for them to be gone, but then they didn’t cross over;they stayed. They’ve been here for two years and she’s gotten so used to it that if they were to suddenly leave she wouldn’t be prepared. She’d loved them then, but she loves them more now, so wholly and completely that losing them feels like losing a part of her and she hasn’t even _ lost _ them. 

But she doesn’t scream that, and Reggie grabs her other hand, and they sit there on her bed for what feels like forever, and she drinks it in like it’s the last time she’ll ever have it.

—

Christmas is three weeks away when Luke begs off to go see his family. “I just wanna see how they’re doing,” he admits. “I haven’t gone in a while.” He shrugs, and Alex and Reggie wave him off, so Julie does, too, and she sits with them for a while before Reggie poofs out, too, to help Ray with the Christmas lights, leaving her and Alex alone in the studio.

It’s not the first time, and she loves to hang out with him one-on-one. He’s a good listener, and a good friend, and he’ll usually do just about anything for you. She asks him what Willie’s up to, and he shrugs. “I haven’t seen him since last week. Hopefully I will soon.”

She frowns. “Is he MIA?”

Alex shrugs. “He tends to disappear for lengths of time.” He sounds a bit upset about it, and Julie frowns harder. Alex shakes his head. “Caleb still owns his soul, you know? Like, we defeated him, power of love and all that jazz, but Willie has things to do. And it’s not like we can use cell phones, or anything.” Alex makes a face. “I still don’t even really understand them.”

“You figured out a touch screen computer but not a smart phone?” Julie tries to hold in a laugh, but she can’t, and Alex gives her a look before he laughs a little, too. “I’m sorry, though. I wish it was easier to see him.”

“Me, too.” Alex fiddles with a drumstick, and Julie watches him for a moment, and she wonders if he knows where he’s buried. A sick feeling enters her stomach, then, like she’s really acknowledging that he’s dead. He’s sitting in front of her, tapping out a beat on the coffee table for a song they’d written earlier, and he’s so alive to her, she could reach out and touch him. So she does.

“Jules?” she hears, and she blinks, and suddenly she’s 14, and sitting on her bed, and her mom is coming in, rumpling the covers as she sits lightly. Julie looks around, and everything looks the same, except there’s her mom, sitting in front of her. She looks away quickly, but she catches the glimpse of a frown on her mom’s face. “Hey, look at me, mija.”

Julie feels herself frown. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Her voice says them automatically, and she knows exactly what this conversation is, and she’d prefer that in this instance she not relive it.

Her mom sighs, though, like nothing is out of the ordinary. “I don’t know either.” They sit there in silence, and when Julie looks up, Alex leaning on his knees looking at her. Her hand is touching his wrist. She blinks, and her mom is gone. 

“Alex?”

“Yeah, hey,” he says, giving her an odd look. “Are you okay? You seemed a little...” He makes a hand motion, trying to say she’s zoned out. He sighs. “Out of it?”

Julie nods, leaning back on the couch, looking up at him. “I’m okay.” She sighs, patting the space next to her, and Alex moves to sit next to her, leaning back with her. “Just thinking about my mom.”

Alex frowns, nodding. “Wanna think about it in silence with me?” Julie smiles at that, looking at Alex, his earnest expression, his kind eyes. He looks exactly the same as he had when she met him, and that hits her like a ton of bricks, suddenly, that she’s almost 19 and he’s still 17, and he’ll always be 17, he’ll always look this young. She blinks.

If she squints, she could see him at 21, at 25, growing and getting married and having a family, and then she remembers he never got that. She’s older than he was when he died. She swallows harshly, exhaling shakily, and Alex frowns harder. “Julie?” 

She smiles, though it’s watery and thin, and she shakes her head. “Can I tell you about her, instead?” Alex’s smile is soft when she says it, and he nods, almost imperceptibly, and she takes that as her cue to talk. 

“My abuelita says that my mom  _ always  _ loved music,” she begins, and as she talks, Alex hangs onto every word.

Through stories about her mom banging on piano keys as a little kid, her training as a classical singer but her love of rock shining through, her Carole King and Fleetwood Mac records that Julie has on her bookshelf, and Alex listens, enraptured by it all.

“She was in a band,” Julie says, leaning forward into her hands. “Hold on, I have a picture.” She opens her laptop, and goes to Facebook, and stops just short of typing Rose Molina in the search bar. She blinks. “Oh.”

Alex tilts his head. “Oh?” 

“I haven’t searched her on Facebook since...” she trails off, and Alex nods. “Death is weird.”

Alex wrinkles his nose at that, letting his gaze slide toward the ceiling as she tries to gather the courage to type in her mom’s name. “It’s weird when it happens to you, and then you’re still here.” He blinks, slowly, and there’s color to his cheeks, and when she touches his wrist again, he feels warm and right there next to her. “Like, I’m dead, you know? I don’t know where my sister is, I have no deep desire to know where my parents are.” He sounds resigned, like he’s talked about this before. And maybe he has. “Do you think my sister wonders?” he asks, and he sounds so young.  _ He is,  _ her brain says unhelpfully. “Do you think she wonders if I’m still around?”

Julie swallows the lump in her throat. “I wonder about my mom every day,” she says, and Alex smiles at her.  _ Right there _ , she reminds herself.  _ He’s right there. _ “If your sister loves you as much as you love her, then I’m sure she thinks about you all the time.”

“Loved,” Alex says, mouth twisted in displeasure. “Because, you know—”

“No,” Julie says, firmly, and she wakes her laptop and stares at the cursor as it blinks at her. “Loves. Present tense. She never stopped.” Alex breathes in deeply, and she squeezes his wrist where her fingers still rest, and then she types in her mother’s name.

“No shit?” Alex says, looking at the photo. “I think we met her at the Orpheum.”

Julie whips her head to face him. “You knew my mom?”

Alex shakes his head. “No, no, we met her right before... well. Death by street dog.” He punctuates it with a laugh, but all Julie can think is that maybe her mom really  _ did _ send the boys to her, right when she needed it. Julie throws her arms around Alex’s neck, holding him tight. His arms circle her waist, and he squeezes her and he’s so alive, right in front of her, speaking to her. She can feel him. “You okay?”

“Just glad you’re here,” she mumbles, and she feels Alex smile into her hair.

—

Grief is a funny thing.

There are days when it’s immense and paralyzing, like you’ve just learned about what happened, and the other days, where the grief is less prominent, but it still informs everything you do. She’s sitting in the kitchen with Tía Victoria and Flynn at the countertop, while Flynn works on a social media post and Tía flutters around, cooking something that smells amazing, when she hears the boys stumble into the house, not using the front door. Tía rolls her eyes, a smile on her lips.

“Boys,” she calls out, and they freeze, so reminiscent of the first night she’d met them that it makes Julie let out a laugh. Tía laughs with her. “How many times have I told you to use the doorknob?” 

“Sorry, Tía,” they chorus, and Flynn joins in the laughter, looking at their chagrined faces in delight. They wave at everyone, and Luke hops up next to her while Alex sits next to Flynn, looking over what she’s done, and Reggie helps Tía by handing her ingredients. Once her dad and Carlos get home, the house will be brimming with life, if it isn’t already.

The thought makes her breath catch in her throat, and Luke moves his head up from where it had been resting on her shoulder to look at her, expression quizzical. “You good?” he asks, and she nuzzles into his neck. He smells faintly of pine trees and mint, and she burrows further into him, snaking her arms around his middle. He just hums, and his chin rests on her head. He feels real. He  _ is  _ real. And he’s right in front of her, and he’s kissing the top of her head, and she can feel the fabric of his shirt on her cheek, and she can feel him breathe in and out, even though he technically doesn’t need to, but ghost shit is still so weird that she doesn’t  _ really  _ know if he needs to or not, and he continues humming, something she doesn’t recognize, but it’s soothing, and the hug was needed. 

“Julie, honey?” Tía says, and Julie hums from where she’s situated in Luke’s chest. “Are you...” She trails off, and Julie turns to face her, and watches her shake her head. “How many empanadillas do you want?” 

“Just two.” Julie pulls away, and Luke’s giving her a look, one that says he wants to talk about it, and Julie just smiles at him, and takes her plate gratefully. She hears her dad and Carlos walk in, and it strikes her, suddenly, that her life is not empty with the boys here. Tía is cooking and Reggie is helping and Alex and Flynn are editing and Carlos is cracking jokes and maybe it’s sort of okay, then, that her mom isn’t here. Because Tía’s cooking is almost as good as her mom’s, and Carlos’s jokes are just as bad as her mom’s were, and her dad is smiling at the bustling kitchen looking content with everything. And there’s a space missing, of course. She can almost make out exactly where her mom would be standing, watching everything unfold with a bemused expression on her face, and Julie almost wishes she was there. The boys are not a replacement, just an addition.

Julie needs to... she needs a piano.

“I’ll be back,” she says, and she shoots Reggie a look from her perch as she tries to say  _ make sure no one follows me _ . She gets out of the house, uninterrupted, and she opens the door to the studio. The cool air greets her, like a welcome friend, and she shuts the door behind her, walking slowly to the grand piano.

It’s cool to the touch, and she feels that breeze on the back of her neck again. This time, she lets it happen, and she sits. “Mom?” she says. Nothing. “Mom, I thought I found my way back to music when the boys came.” She shakes her head, and lets her fingers hover over the keys. “But I think music still hurts.” She plays a chord, and goes in an easy I-V-vi-IV progression, playing little improvisations over it. “I don’t want it to hurt anymore, I want it to heal.” It turns into a song she wrote, suddenly. Not a song by her mother, not a song by Luke. A purely Julie original.

And then she sings. Not for her dad, not for Flynn, not for the boys, but for her. 

And something in her cracked chest begins to mend.

—

“Flynn, I need your help,” she whispers into the dark of her room. Flynn rolls over, facing her. “I need to find the boys’ graves.” 

Flynn sits up, immediately. “Where do we start?”

Julie finds Luke’s easily. Looking up obituaries and graves on the internet is  _ weird _ , because right now she’s reading about Luke Patterson, 17, loving son, survived by his parents Mitch and Emily, and he’s dead. Luke is really  _ dead _ , because he has a grave, and an obituary, and people went to his funeral in 1995, and they sat there and cried over a life lost so young, so tragically. She exhales, and swallows a lump in her throat.

“Jesus,” Flynn says. “He’s really dead, huh?”

If Julie wasn’t so fragile, it would be funny. Really, it would. It’s just that, thinking about her mom, thinking about losing her boys, knowing they’re already dead, it just... hits her, and she cracks. “Shit,” she gasps, a sob escaping her chest, and Flynn moves immediately, arms coming around her shoulders.

“Oh, Jules, I’m sorry.” Flynn rubs her back. “I didn’t...”

“I miss her,” Julie says, her tears falling on the bedspread, and Flynn hums. “I miss her and she’s been gone for three years and she doesn’t get to see any of this. And she died when I was 15, Flynn. Do you know how young we were, three years ago?”

“We’re still young now,” Flynn says, quietly. Julie cries harder. “Oh, sweetie.”

“It’s just...”

It’s just. She can never finish the thought, because what she lost, then, was so raw, it’s hard to even begin to explain. It’s just that there’s this feeling of her realizing how young she was, when she lost her mom. She was 15. She should have had more time, should have had her here to ask about boy problems or girl problems or both problems, and she should have gotten to ask questions about growing up, being a woman in her late teens or early twenties, about getting married, or being in a band. She always thought she’d have more time.

She had 15 wonderful years with her mom, and she can’t remember the sound of her voice. 

“Sometimes, I think she’s there,” Julie says, in a hushed whisper. Flynn rubs her back. “I think I can feel her, in the studio, and why shouldn’t I? I have three ghosts from 1995, what’s one more from 2019?” Flynn giggles at that, but it sounds a little watery. Julie pulls her closer, and Flynn squeezes tight. “Sometimes I feel a cool hand on my face, or something plays on the keys, and I’ll look to one of the guys, and they’ll be just as confused as me, and I wonder if...”

Flynn is quiet, for a moment, still rocking them back and forth. “You know, Jules,” she begins, and Julie pulls back to look at her. Her eyes are glassy, and there’s a tear falling from her left eye. Julie wipes it away, and Flynn clears her throat. “I think your mom is always there. And always has been. Because, like, not to sound cheesy, but she’s you, you know?” Flynn exhales, shakily. “I mean, she was like me and Carrie’s second mom. And we were so young. And that  _ sucks _ .”

“Yeah,” Julie laughs wetly. 

Flynn grips her face. “But she’s in you, and she’s in Carlos, and she’s always there, you know? I think those moments... I think they’re real. And I think you can take it however you want, but I think she’s watching out for you. I mean, why else would you have three ghost boys living in your garage?”

Julie laughs, and so does Flynn, and they laugh and laugh until their sides hurt, and there’s tears streaming down their faces for a happier reason. Flynn checks her phone, and groans. “It’s three,” she says. “We can look for Reggie and Alex in the morning.”

Julie nods, feeling drained, suddenly, and she lays back on her pillows, reaching out to Flynn. She squeezes her hand. “I love you,” she says, and Flynn squeezes back.

“I always got you.”

Julie believes it.

—

Julie takes the car and pulls up to the gates of the cemetery, putting the car in park. She’s visiting Luke, first; by sheer  _ luck  _ all the boys are buried in the same place, and she thanks her lucky stars (or her mother) before she steels herself, and heads in. 

She wades through the graves, and finds Luke, easily. The gravestone is modest, but nice; it’s clearly kept up, and Julie blinks away tears she didn’t realize were forming. She lays one of the four dahlias she’s brought at the foot of the grave, and she hugs herself, tightly, bringing her cardigan closer around her middle. 

“Oh!” she hears, and when she turns around, there’s Luke’s mother, smiling at her. “Julie, right? I didn’t realize you came to visit.” She gestures to Luke’s grave, and Julie smiles.

“I was going to visit my mom,” she says, and Emily’s face falls. “It’s my fourth Christmas without her, and I saw Luke’s grave, and I thought...” she trails off, unsure of where to go, but Emily just smiles. 

“It’s my 27th, without Luke.” She puts a hand on Julie’s shoulder, and they stand there in companionable silence for a moment. “The first few, I never thought I’d feel happy again.”

Julie swallows the lump in her throat. “How did you, um. How did you feel happy, again?”

Emily smiles sadly, and Julie’s lower lip wobbles. “Time. After the sixth one, it felt a little easier to look at a Christmas tree and not want to rip it down.” She laughs. “Luke always loved Christmas. He ran out the day after, in 1994.”

“You still remember,” Julie says, and Emily nods.

“I still feel him, sometimes.” She runs her hand over her hair, and it’s such a Luke move that Julie can’t help but smile. “I don’t know if I was so lost in my grief that I didn’t notice, but I do now. I swear I can hear him singing, sometimes. It’s faint and muffled, and his first guitar is always right where I left it, but...” She shrugs. “Time makes it better.”

“Thank you,” Julie says, and she smiles. “I think he’ll be listening, wherever he is.” 

“Thank you, Julie.” Emily smiles back at her.

Julie leaves her, and she continues on, checking her phone for where she knows Alex’s grave to be. She frowns when she comes upon a headstone with little upkeep, overgrown with ivy. She can read it, though;  _ Alex Mercer, 1978-1995 _ , and her stomach turns. No nice epitaph, a crack in the top. She crouches down and sees a small rainbow bracelet on the dirt, and she smiles.  _ His sister. _ There’s a note, and it’s not for her, so she doesn’t read it, but she does sit down in front of the grave, and look.

Alex’s body is six feet below her. His body. Because he’s not alive. She shakes her head, leaving a dahlia there too, and she stands, shakily, and walks to Reggie’s. 

When she finds it, she’s expecting something similar to Luke’s, but what she finds is something much more like Alex’s, small and brief, like they couldn’t be bothered to celebrate the life of someone so young.  _ It was probably nice in 1995,  _ she says, and then that makes her sadder, because that means someone hasn’t been by in a while to visit him, and she sits there, in front of Reggie’s grave for a long time, so someone would have come by. She brushes the dirt away, and there he is,  _ Reggie Peters, 1978-1995,  _ and her heart hurts. 

Her boys were so young. She’s almost 19 years old, and they died, and they’ll cross over, eventually, and she’ll have to deal with that, and it feels almost impossible. Because when she drives home, they’ll be in the garage, laughing and fucking around and they’ll be so alive to her. She can see them and  _ feel  _ them, even though all three of them are six feet under her right now. They’re there, in the garage, waiting for her, and she loves them, and losing them, so soon after her mom, feels cruel, now that she’s gotten time to know them and love them.

_ What died didn’t stay dead. _

She feels tears on her cheek, and then there’s a flannel being wrapped around her. She smiles. “It’s cold out here, Julie,” Reggie says, and she looks at his grave and then up at him, and she flings herself into his arms, crying. “Hey, hey.”

“What’s going on?” That’s Luke, and she can feel him, flush against her back, his chin on her shoulder, and then there’s a hand on her elbow and a kiss in her hair, and she doesn’t want to lose this.

“What do you mean, lose this?” Alex asks, quietly, and Julie can’t stop crying. Maybe if she could, she would answer, but her cries only grow stronger, and they hold her tighter. “Julie, hey.”

“When you cross over,” she mutters, voice thick. Luke presses a kiss to her shoulder. “It was fine, maybe, when I had only known you for a few weeks, but now you’re—” She cuts herself off, breathing unsteady. “Now you’re everything to me and I can’t lose that.”

“Julie,” Luke murmurs, and his voice is low. “You’re not losing us, even when we cross over.”

“We’re alive again, because of you.” Reggie’s voice is choked. “We’re here, and when we’re not, we’ll always be with you. Always.”

“I can’t do it,” Julie says. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s happening soon, Julie,” Alex says, tone dry, and it makes her giggle. The boys hold her closer. “You’ve still got us, and we’re right here. And when we’re not, that’s something to deal with when we get there. But you’ve got us, and we’re not leaving you, not now.”

“Jules,” Reggie says, voice low. “Remember when you said you thought you felt your mom?” Julie hums. “Maybe she was there, you know? Maybe not all ghosts are... like us. Maybe they just appear when you need them to. And maybe you needed her, then.”

“And maybe,” Luke begins, “if you ever need us, we’ll be right there, too. But for now, we’re here. With you. And we love you.”

She goes through her ritual that she always does when they hug her; she can feel their shirts, their hands on hers, their breath on her neck, her forehead, her cheek. She can feel the weight of them on her body, and they feel so real to her.  _ They are _ . Even if they’re alive in her head, they’re still alive. And they’re here, with her, holding her. She can twist her fingers in Reggie’s hair, and she can feel Luke’s nose in the crook of her neck, and she can feel Alex’s cool lips on her temple, and she lets herself cry.

She cries into Reggie’s flannel, crying for them and their lives that got cut short, and they squeeze her tighter, and when she opens her eyes, theirs are red, but they’re smiling at her. She looks at the flower in her hands, and then back up at them.

“Do you guys wanna meet my mom?” she asks. Luke’s face lights up, and Alex’s softens, and Reggie beams at her, and she grabs Luke’s hand, and leads them toward where her mother is.

It’s only right to introduce them to the person who introduced her to music, after all. She’s sure her mom will appreciate it.

When they stop in front of her grave, Julie lays the flower down, and straightens back up, feeling a sense of calm wash over her. “I think she might be here,” Julie says.

“She might.” Luke’s voice sounds funny, but when she turns to him, he just smiles at her, and they stand there for a moment, before Reggie’s voice cuts through the quiet stillness.

“It’s snowing!” he exclaims, and Julie looks up at the sky, smiling and shaking her head as Reggie jumps up and down like an overexcited puppy, and Alex can barely keep the smile off his face at his excitement. 

And when she gets back home, that night, she pulls down the ladder stairs, and goes into the attic. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! you can find me on tumblr, username adamsparirsh.


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